


maraas kata

by venndaai



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character bottling up emotions is coaxed into expressing them, Character needs physical pain or injury to ward off insanity/death/magical corruption, Forced to return to scene of traumatic events, Guilt over past actions, M/M, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 09:43:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18892084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/pseuds/venndaai
Summary: An urgent quest takes Dorian to Seheron. The Iron Bull goes with him.





	maraas kata

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tentacledicks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tentacledicks/gifts).



> content warning: a trans OC is imperiled but not actually harmed in this story. 
> 
> The plot explanation for "Bull and Dorian end up on Seheron for Reasons" kind of took over here and I ended up with a lot more Plot than I meant to, hope this works for you anyway.

The Iron Bull knew, from the moment he entered the villa courtyard and saw Dorian standing in the doorway waiting, arms folded, that something was up. He didn’t let it show, kept joking with the boys, let them wolf whistle when he gave his horses’ reins to Grim and headed towards the door.

“Hey, beautiful,” he said, and Dorian kissed him like nothing was wrong, and he let himself enjoy that, determinedly.

“Something’s up,” he said, when Dorian let him go.

“Come in,” Dorian said. “Let’s talk about it inside.”

 

 

“I don’t know how much you hear of Tevinter politics,” Dorian said, by way of beginning. “The news probably hasn’t gotten far south yet, but- we, that is to say the Lucerni, achieved a major political victory two months ago.”

“Right,” the Bull said. “You talked about it.”

“Did I?” Dorian said, vaguely. He was twisting one of his rings, back and forth. “Of course. Well, I wouldn’t have mentioned that this victory would not have been possible were we not aided by one of our most junior converts, a young altus student who got her hands on certain valuable documents. She helped us blackmail her own parents, because she believed in our cause.”

The Bull nodded, but didn’t say anything, just waited as Dorian collected his thoughts.

“Those of us in the Magisterium have enough power that our enemies could not revenge themselves against us, but this student had no such power. The day after the vote, she was drafted into the army and sent directly to the front. It’s supposed to technically be possible for altus to be drafted, but it would never happen, unless one’s family wasn’t inclined to protest. Antonia’s wasn’t. I believe something was said about the army ‘making a man’ of her.” Dorian bit his lip and looked away.

“Shit,” the Bull said, softly.

“Quite.” The Bull knew that biting tone, the way Dorian’s voice sometimes went sharp where it might have shook. “We’ve been told she was sent to Seheron, and killed in action as soon as she arrived. I have doubts. Or maybe they’re only hopes. Regardless, they must be satisfied.” He still wasn’t looking at the Bull. “I was wondering if perhaps you still had contacts who might assist me in discovering the truth.”

Something cold had slipped down the Bull’s spine when he heard the word _Seheron_ , but he just shook his head and said, “Sorry, big guy. It’s been more than fifteen years. I wouldn’t even know how to get a message into Alam any more.”

“Ah,” said Dorian, so lightly that the Bull felt his chest tighten, knowing that he was about to get hit with something big. Like being in a fight, and knowing something big and ugly was raising a warhammer right behind your back. “Understandable, if inconvenient. Well. In that case, I’d simply appreciate any advice you can offer on how to get myself in.”

The Bull had figured out where that sentence was going about halfway through, simply by making use of an old habit he called “anticipating the worst possible thing that could happen”. The advance warning didn’t really help, but at least he managed to keep his breathing steady. But he felt the silence stretching out, getting heavier and heavier. If he didn’t break it soon, Dorian would say something they’d both wince at, he knew that from experience.

The Bull pushed himself off the bed, went to the window. It was still bright and sunny outside, the garden a gorgeous patchwork of colors. He could hear birdsong, and a few buzzing insects. “How long’s it been since she’s supposed to have gotten there?”

“Four and a half weeks.”

“You know the kid’s almost certainly dead, right?” the Bull said.

Behind him, Dorian made a small, uncategorizable noise. “I know, yes,” he said. “It hardly matters, does it?”

Now, now the Bull’s breathing was getting out of control. He heard the blood pound in his ears.

“She admired Mae so much,” Dorian said. “I couldn’t face Mae if I didn’t at least make an effort, and to be honest I don’t think I could face myself either. So.”

“Okay,” the Bull said. He flexed his hands, once, before turning back around. Dorian was looking right at him, eyes wide, all open and vulnerable in that way that went straight to the Bull’s heart whenever he saw it. “Give me an hour to pack and talk to Krem, and then we can get going.”

Dorian breathed out sharply, a “hah” noise. “Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t- you know I can’t possibly allow that, for all the reasons we’ve previously discussed.”

The Bull looked at him. Dorian looked away, at the wall.

“You had to have known there’s no way I’m gonna let you do this by yourself, if I have to track you all the way across Tevinter,” the Bull said. “You could have just gone without letting me know, if you really didn’t want me along.”

Dorian shrugged. “There was always the chance you still had a network I could make use of, and neither of us would have to go,” he said, reasonably. “Besides, I knew if I didn’t tell you, you’d hate me when you found out.”  

The Bull walked back over to him, put a hand on his cheek, felt Dorian soft and warm and real, not just a voice on a crystal. Dorian closed his eyes, and leaned into the touch. “Still,” the Bull said. “Thanks. This thing is crazy, but we’ll get it done.”

“I suppose I can’t stop you.”

“Yeah. You can’t.”

Outside in the garden, the boys were still arguing, though Grim had sat down right in the middle of the flowerbed and seemed to be taking a nap, the bees buzzing around his fallen form. Stepping from the shadow of the villa’s main doorway into the sun felt almost like going through one of those creepy magic mirrors, a journey from one world into another.

“-he was winking at me and you all know it,” Krem said. “Hey, Chief. How’s Dorian?” Dalish and Rocky chimed in with appropriate whistles and suggestive noises. Skinner just snorted.

“He’s good,” the Bull said, grinning. “Hey, Krem de la crem, need to talk to you for a moment.”

“Someone’s in trouble,” Dalish muttered.

“Maybe the Chief is sore the Marquise didn’t wink at _him_ ,” Stitches suggested.

“You lot shut up and stop lazing about,” Krem said. “Bring the rest of the stuff inside.” He followed the Bull down the garden path that wandered behind the stables. The Bull listened to the birdsong as he walked, the quiet sounds of shifting horses in the stables, the distant lowing of cows, a sound subtly different from the cries of dathras. The little things that told him he was in Nevarra. That separated one life from another.

He explained things to Krem.

“We’ll come with you,” Krem said, immediately, and the Bull’s eye started tearing up, and the pit under his eyepatch started itching the way it always did when he felt like crying. They’d talked about their homelands, him and Krem, and he knew Krem never wanted to step over that border again, that even being this close made him nervous.

“Not happening,” the Bull said. “We all take off for weeks, the company’s gone by the time we get back. You know how it is.”

“So we build it back up,” Krem said. “Screw the company. The six of us, that’s the company. We’re not going to let you get yourself killed.”

“You really want to take Skinner and Dalish to Tevinter?” the Bull said.

“They’d want to,” Krem said. “For you, they’d want to do it.”

He was right, of course, and the Bull hated it, the heavy knowledge that he’d fucked up, somewhere along the way, getting himself in this situation.

“Krem,” he said, his eye trained on Krem’s face, sun darkened and tousle-haired and determined. “I can’t, okay? I can’t go back there and have to watch everyone’s back. Only got the one eye. I can keep it on Dorian. Not all of you, too.”

“Chief, you know that’s not how it works,” Krem said, exasperation creeping into his voice. “We watch each others’ backs.”

“Not on Seheron,” the Bull said. Krem had to understand, he had to. “Trust me. I’d be useless, get us all killed.” He doesn’t want to say _I couldn’t trust myself._

Krem looked at him for a while, and then he shut his eyes and let out a short huff of breath. Then the Bull had an armful of ‘Vint suddenly, Krem’s fingertips just barely meeting behind the Bull’s back, Krem’s face pressed between the Bull’s tits, and he’d make a joke but Krem was saying, muffled, “You’d better come back, you big ugly bastard.”

“Hey, don’t worry about me, Krempuff,” the Bull said, patting his shoulder. “You’re the one responsible for keeping Rocky from blowing up the camp, now.”

“I hate you,” Krem said. He squeezed the Bull tighter, and then let go. He wiped his eyes a bit; the Bull offered him a handkerchief, which he pushed away. “Look after the altus, all right?” Krem said.

“Yeah,” the Bull said. “I will.”

 

If they had more time, they could travel east through the Free Marches, and take a ship around Rivain, avoiding the Imperium entirely; but they didn't, so they retraced the steps Dorian took to get here, west to Hasmal and through a busy border crossing where a clerk examined Dorian’s birthright pendant and recorded the Bull’s status as his hired bodyguard in a thick book. The man gave Dorian a piece of paper; Dorian smiled at him. The Bull smiled too, and the guy flinched away.

“Be nice,” Dorian said, as they made their way through the crowded gates. The crowd did its best to part for them, whether for Dorian’s wealthy appearance or the Bull’s horns he didn’t know. “We don’t want to be noticed.”

“I thought your side was doing well right now?” An elven child was crying on the ground while its mother tried desperately to hush it. She had a collar around her neck. The Bull watched them until the flow of the crowd hid them from his view.

“We’re doing better than we were, which just means we’re strong enough to be a nuisance, and the conservatives will be more eager than ever to assassinate me. A dark night on a lonely road would be perfect for them.”

“Good thing you’ve got your big handsome bodyguard along, then, huh,” the Bull said lightly, and made a show of flexing for Dorian, who scoffed. It was almost enough to distract from the shivers tap-dancing on his spine. Eight times now in the last six years, Dorian had made his way down to the Nevarran villa, and every time he’d come alone.

The Bull had thought of those trips as reprieves, time away from the viper’s nest of Minrathous, from poison in his wine at a political dinner or a servant with a knife at night.

They were free now from the throng, out on the open road of the old Imperial Highway, much better maintained here than in the south, broad smooth stones shining in the late afternoon sun. “Come on,” Dorian said, vaulting up into the saddle, “we can still make a few miles before nightfall.”

They rode as hard and fast as the horses could tolerate. There was plenty of company on the road, human and dwarven merchants of all nationalities, Nevarran nobles traveling to the courts of the Imperium, occasional imperial soldiers on their way to relieve those at the border. Once they even saw a party of dragon hunters, heading into the desert in hopes of returning with trophies that would make their fortunes and their names. Dorian and the Bull kept to themselves. People stared at the Bull. He was used to that. He wasn’t used to the way they looked from him to Dorian, faces smoothing as they drew a conclusion that satisfied them. It made his horns itch, though he just smiled in return. The smiles seemed to unnerve the starers, anyway.

“They think you’re my slave, of course,” Dorian said, one night as they sat slumped against their rolled up bedrolls in front of a roaring fire. At this time of year, the nights were warm and cloudless enough that they rarely bothered to put up the tent they’d brought, but Dorian liked to sit close to the heat of the fire anyway. The Bull was holding a little hand mirror up for him to look in as he wiped the powders and paints off his face. It was very much like their old days with the Inquisition. It was already, eight days out, the longest time he’d spent with Dorian in six years.  

The Bull grunted.

“I know it bothers you,” Dorian said, dabbing at his eyelids. “I’ve seen it bother you.”

“Doesn’t bother me,” the Bull said. “I knew how it’d be.”

Dorian twisted to look up at him, eyebrows raised. “It’s allowed to bother you,” he said, voice sharp. “It would certainly bother me, were I in your position.”

The Bull leered at him. “If you want to talk about _positions-_ ”

“Bull.”

The Bull put the mirror down. Pulled Dorian further into his lap. Felt the warmth of him, breathed in the smell of oils and perfumes and human sweat. “So it bothers me,” he said. “I’d put up with a lot worse, to be near you.”

“Idiot,” Dorian said, but he kissed him.

“Let’s talk about plans,” the Bull said, several enjoyable minutes later.

“I suppose we must,” Dorian said with a sigh. “So: you heard that we retook Alam? That’s the battle we were told Antonia perished in. We can’t possibly hold it, of course, everyone knows that, but the Bellusi want to prove they’re the fellows to protect the Imperium against the horde right before the Ferventis vote on the military budget.”

The Bull blinked, startled. “Shouldn’t you be in Minrathous, then, if this big vote is coming up?”

“The vote’s already decided, there’s nothing that schmoozing can do about it now. If I could return with Antonia, though, and have her speak about the horrors of war…”

The Bull grunted. “Right.”

Dorian froze, his warm body going rigid where it lay along the Bull’s side. He twisted, then, to look the Bull in the eye. “This isn’t political. I wouldn’t- surely you know I wouldn’t drag you to fucking Seheron over politics.”

He was tense enough to snap, suddenly, and the Bull’s stomach twisted. He made himself lie still, stay relaxed. “Hey,” he said, “why not?”

“Are you serious?” Dorian asked.

“Yeah. Hey. Kadan. I don’t want the war between your folks and mine going hot again. Like, really don’t want it.” It was inevitable, sure, he knew that, but every day it didn’t was a few more days the ordinary folk of Rivain and northern Tevinter got to live their lives as best they could. He didn’t have nightmares about invasion, not when he was asleep, he was still Qunari enough not to dream, but when he slipped up and drank too much, when things were quiet and he was alone- yeah.  “I’d give my life to stop that, if I could. In an instant.”

“Well, you aren’t going to get that chance,” Dorian snapped.

“That’s not exactly fair, is it?” the Bull asked, in his reasonable voice. “You risk your life for that cause, every day. Only fair I get in on it too.”

Dorian pushed away, got to his feet. The Bull let him. He watched Dorian pace a tight circle around the campfire, returning after three quick circuits.

“Be that as it may,” Dorian said, sitting back down, as though he’d never gotten up, “this is about looking for a lost young girl. And the logical place to start will be Alam. Someone will be bound to remember her. But I doubt you’d be welcome in the city at the moment. You’ll have to wait for me, either in Vyrantium or somewhere in the jungle.”

“And if you don’t find her?”

“Then I will be relying on you to assist me in turning that island inside-out looking for her.”

 

Two weeks later they reached Vyrantium, the road swelling up like a wave with the crest at the top of a hill and below, spread out before them, a beautiful city of white marble circling a sparkling blue bay. A sudden breeze carried the smells of the Nocen Sea, and all at once the Bull was glad they hadn’t traveled by way of Rivain, hadn’t retraced a much older path, the way Hissrad had gone when he’d stepped off a merchant boat onto a new continent.

Dorian halted his horse, and the Bull did the same, waiting. “From now on,” Dorian said, sharp, commanding in a way he rarely was, “don’t speak to people. Let me do the talking.”

“Alright, _dominus meus_ ,” the Bull said, with a deliberately sloppy approximation of a Tevinter military salute. He expected Dorian to laugh, and was unnerved and slightly sickened when he instead froze, and his horse shifted uneasily at the change in tension.

“Don’t,” Dorian said.

The Bull thought about making a joke of how it had never been a touchy subject when they’d played evil magister and enslaved prisoner of war in bed, but he managed to stop himself. There were a lot of things that could be sexy in bed and not sexy when they were close to reality.

So he followed Dorian through the broad streets, shaded from the harsh sun by flowering vines, and didn’t talk, just watched the people in the streets, guessed from their clothes and body language who they were and where they were going; altus ladies carried on litters by slaves, laetan students chatting in wineshops, soporati workers and merchants and servants; and slaves, recognizable by their collars, going about their errands without meeting anyone’s eyes. The Bull did his best to avoid eye contact himself. He followed Dorian to an inn by the docks, where he stayed quiet while Dorian had an argument with the proprietor.

“I’m not having a beast in my rooms,” she said, arms folded. “It can stay in the stables, but I’ll hold you liable for any damage.”

Dorian smiled, very tightly, all his teeth exposed. He put another gold coin down on the bar, and when the innkeeper didn’t relent, a third. She looked at them, and at the Bull, and then the coins disappeared into her robes and she handed Dorian a key.

“Thank you,” he said, and plucked it from her grip without touching her. The Bull followed him up the stairs, ducking and turning sideways so his horns wouldn’t scrape the ceiling. Inside the small whitewashed room, Dorian closed the door and leaned heavily against it. The Bull sat down on the much too small bed.

“They’d call you a lot worse in Qunandar, y’know,” he said.

Dorian didn’t respond. That was okay. The Bull sat there on the bed, not thinking of anything in particular, while Dorian leaned against the door and breathed harshly, in and out, in and out.

At last Dorian stood up and walked over to where the Bull sat. “I’ll go find a boat that will take us to Alam,” he said.

“If your guys have still got it.” The Bull’s voice sounded weird in his own ears. Too loud.

“If we haven’t been driven out in the last few weeks, yes.”

“Okay.”

Dorian’s hands were on his face. Dorian kissed him. The Bull put his left hand on Dorian’s hip, his fingers and finger stubs pressing against the layers of cotton.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Dorian murmured.

“You’d better,” the Bull said, and gave Dorian’s ass a squeeze. For a moment things felt normal.

Then Dorian pulled away. He set his pack down at the foot of the bed, and opened the door. “I’ll be back soon,” he said again, and then he was gone.

The Bull sat alone in the small room that smelled of lavender sachets and thought about the things he’d been avoiding thinking about. Maybe a ship would take them to Alam. In spite of himself the blood pounded in his ears when he thought about the place in the hands of the Vints again. Dorian thought the Imperium probably wouldn’t hold the city more than a few months; it had been a desperate act of an empire that knew it was losing, but that wouldn’t mean much to those killed in the street fighting, in the bombardment from the sea. Seheron wasn’t his fight any more, but Alam still felt like a loss.

Maybe they’d get to Alam. Dorian was planning on leaving him to scout the countryside while he asked around in the city, because it wouldn’t be a good idea for the Iron Bull to go through those gates. Qunari absorbed citizen populations along with the land, took in elves and dwarves and humans; Tevinter didn’t bother. There’d be no living Qunari or Tal-Vashoth in Alam now.

He was shaking. He was shaking and he was stuck in this tiny room and he couldn’t even bang his head on anything or the hostile humans all around him would kick him out or worse. He wanted to be outside somewhere, he wanted Krem to hit him with a stick. He tried to hold that image in his mind, the villa in the lazy summer sun, Krem complaining about the stick but doing it anyway, the Chargers laughing. Home.

It was just bad at that moment because Dorian was out of his sight, he thought. He’d come here to keep Dorian safe, or die trying, and he couldn’t do that trapped in a tiny, tiny room while Dorian wandered the city alone, trying to find someone unscrupulous enough to take a magister and a Tal-Vashoth mercenary across the Nocen sea by night.

He realized he was clutching the sending crystal where it hung around his neck. He forced himself to let it go.

The sky outside the little window darkened. Twilight birds sang in the trees next to the inn. The wind blew surprisingly cold from the sea. Dorian came back.

“Had to pay through the nose,” he said, “but I found someone who’ll drop us off well outside the city. She’ll meet us at midnight.”

“Great work,” the Bull said. “Hey. Come here.”

He hugged Dorian, who didn’t protest, just hugged him back almost as tightly. “You alright?” the Bull asked.

“Perfectly fine, as always,” Dorian said. “I brought you dinner, too.”

“Oh, fuck yeah,” the Bull said, kissing Dorian’s cheek. “You’re the best. Think we’ll have time after eating for me to show you some proper appreciation? Since we’ve got a bed, and all.”

“Absolutely,” Dorian said, mouth curving into a smile, and the world clicked back into place, at least for the moment.

 

Their transport was a small sleek boat very clearly meant for smuggling, captained by a scarred dwarf who didn’t give her name and bit into each coin Dorian gave her. Dorian and the Bull clambered down into the hold and made themselves as comfortable as was possible wedged in among various crates and casks. Dorian wrinkled his nose. “There’s lyrium in some of these,” he whispered.

The Bull sniffed. He couldn’t sense lyrium like a mage could, but he definitely smelled gunpowder in the casks. Not gaatlok, weaker human stuff, but they’d be just as dead if anything went up in flames down here.

“Now for the fun part,” Dorian said. “Have I ever told you I tend to get horribly seasick on ocean voyages?”

“Give me a sec, I’ll find you a box to throw up in that’s not full of anything that goes boom.”

“You’re so thoughtful.”

But it was all right, in that dark cramped space, tossed by the waves, waiting to see if they’d be spotted and sunk by military or raiders. It was better than he’d thought it would be, because Dorian was right there curled up in his arms, grumbling and moaning and sipping from a flask of ginger tea to keep his dinner down. The Bull could close his eye and still feel Dorian there, safe. Easy to remember who he was and why he was here, with his heart right there pressed up against his chest.

Still, he didn’t doze off, and when the boat jolted to a stop he and Dorian both flinched, Dorian’s skull banging against the Bull’s chin. “Kaffas,” Dorian hissed, but instead of rubbing his head he grabbed for his staff. The Bull shifted, tried to work feeling back into his muscles.

The hatch opened, letting moonlight in. Moonlight and the smell of ash and dust and fog, and the Bull grabbed at Dorian’s flask, got a mouthful of tea and focused on the ginger, the ginger, he swirled it around in his mouth, over his tongue and his teeth.

“Welcome to the world’s worst shithole,” the captain said, in her strongly accented Tevene. “Get off my ship.”

The Bull climbed the ladder, one hand then the next, feet just about obeying him, and then he was falling over the side of the boat into warm shallow water, Dorian crying out in alarm above him, and then there was black sand beneath him and bile in his mouth. He spat it onto the sand.

“Amatus,” someone was shouting, and he knew that word, it meant _Kadan_ , it meant there was someone he had to protect and he had to get up and move before the arrows came. Before the knives. There was fog around him. No. There was no fog. Just a mild summer night, an anonymous stretch of black beach, the shapes of palm trees at the edge of vision. He lurched to his feet.

There were hands on his face. Worried gray eyes. “Amatus,” Dorian said. The Bull caught the hands, brought them down. He needed to be able to see. He only had one eye and when the fog was nearly on you only your peripheral vision could save you and he only had one eye and his knee was bad, he might not be fast enough to lunge when he saw movement.

“I’m good,” he said. “Let’s get under cover.”

The boat was already slipping away across the black water. Dorian waved at it. The Bull caught his hand and pulled him towards the tree line.

He found a big, wide, tree, and leaned against it, looking at the beach, and shuddered.

“I’m not good,” he admitted.

“I gathered that, yes.” Dorian peered at him, pupils wide in the darkness.

“Don’t look at me,” the Bull said. “Watch the forest. The shadows. They can come out of nowhere. You can never stop paying attention.”

The trees were the same. Fifteen fucking years and he’d thought somehow that it’d be all different, but forest didn’t change that fast, the trees still smelled the same, the rustling of night animals and the lapping of waves on the beach were still perfectly familiar sounds. He realized he was waiting to hear the screams.

“I’m not leaving you like this,” Dorian said.

The bark of the tree was smooth against his back. That was familiar too. The names were coming into his head, all the different species of Seheron, Hissrad had memorized them sitting on the docks of Qunandar, sheet of paper in his hand and the bustle of the city around him. “You don’t have a choice.”

“You really don’t understand,” Dorian said. Fuck, he was angry now, on top of the concern, but not scared, not like he should be. “This is not a fucking mission. I am not leaving this island without you, do you understand me?”

The Bull wished he’d shut up. He wasn’t making it any easier to breathe normally. Fuck, shit, fuck. This is what he chose, when he left the Qun. These fucking situations where he had all of the responsibility and none of the options.

“Take me into Alam with you,” he said.

Dorian’s mouth twisted under his moustache. “Maybe,” he said. “Or we could just stay here. Wait twenty-four hours on the beach for the captain to come back. Then go home.” His palm was on the Iron Bull’s face again, this thumb stroking the Iron Bull’s cheek. “I’m not sacrificing you to save her,” he said. “I’m not sacrificing you for anything, got it? That’s not what any of this was.”

“Nah,” the Bull said. “Nah, we’ve got a goal, let’s get it done. Just- hit me. Snap me out of this.”

Dorian’s mouth pressed into a thin, angry line, but he drew his hand away from the Bull’s face, and touched the tip of one finger to the Bull’s chest, the exposed skin between the straps of his harness. Lightning sparked, a violently bright flash in the darkness, and sharp, sharp pain hissed down the Bull’s veins. Oh yeah. Not as good as a long session with a stick, but great in a pinch. The pain activated the reaver rage, he could feel it welling up, a nice hot reset for his brain.

Twenty-four hours, and this would be over. He could keep it together until then.

 

Alam looked like shit. Even more like shit than he remembered it, which was saying something. The walls were rubble. Those walls had stood for four hundred years, built by the ancient Imperium and repaired by the Qunari through various repossessions. The Bull remembered children and dogs playing in their shade. They were piles of slag now, melted by some unimaginable but no doubt magical heat. Smoke rose from pyres nearby. The one thing the Bull could say in favor of demons, at least they motivated people to get rid of corpses quickly.

The Bull entered the town for the first time in fifteen years with a rope around his neck.

“Don’t worry about me, Kadan,” he’d said, placing the other end of the rope in Dorian’s hands, folding Dorian’s fingers around the rough hemp and squeezing briefly. “Not like it’s the first time you’ve tied me up.” The joke had fallen flat.

Alam was guarded now by wary, tense soldiers in heavy armor. They knew, the Bull thought, that the victory was transitory, and that the return of the Antaam would be violent and unstoppable. The Bull kept his eyes on Dorian’s feet, kept his posture submissive as a beaten dog’s, but he could feel the soldiers’ eyes on him, their fear and hatred. The tesserarius standing shift at the largest gap in the rubble asked Dorian for his name and business in the sharp tone of one who wanted to be rude but didn’t dare, not when every hair on Dorian’s head screamed Altus.

The legionnaires didn’t much care for alti, the Iron Bull had known that even before he’d had Krem to tell him raunchy Magister jokes. Hissrad had known that, from intercepted communications, chats with deserters, and sitting in on the occasional interrogation. He wondered if the interrogator he’d worked with was still on the island. She’d been the longest serving Tamassran on the island when he’d arrived, having been there for eleven years already, and she’d still been there when he left. He thought about her, trying to remember the sharp planes of her face, while Dorian introduced himself as Felix Verixsus, a very important person who had important business with Governor Varas, and who didn’t have to explain himself or his well trained body slave to a jumped up soporati clodhead.

“Very good, my lord,” the tesserarius said, not bothering to hide his disgust. He’d seen too much lately, the Bull guessed, was going to snap soon. The Kithshok could use that, if he still had Ben-Hassrath in the city, which he almost certainly did if things hadn’t gone completely to hell. Not the Bull’s problem, whether this guy was encouraged to desert or stabbed in the back some night not too long from now.

The buildings inside Alam hadn’t fared much better than the walls, though some were miraculously whole. Dorian headed towards the city center, the Bull pulled along behind him. The Bull snuck glances around him as he plodded along. No children playing in the streets. Some humans and elves, hurrying about their private business.

The Bull remembered the old city hall. It had held offices for the southwestern chapter of the Ben-Hassrath, and the offices of the bureaucracy, mostly staffed by Viddathari natives, and the empty office of the chief administrator, empty since the murder of the last one in Hissrad’s fourth year on the island. The local antaam had been quartered in the north side of the city, up the hill. The building had been a fine one, and Hissrad had sketched it, once, sitting in the sunny town square, watching people going in and out.

That building hadn’t survived the latest bombardment; the building now flying the Imperium’s flag, the one the Tevinter governor was presumably installed in, had been the big schoolhouse, when the Bull had last been here. No children playing on the broad steps now, no Tamassran watching from the doorway. The Bull was glad of that. This wasn’t the schoolhouse in the capitol, the one where he’d watched them lay out all the tiny bodies, but… still.

Instead there was a Qunari chained to the facade. A kid, the Iron Bull saw when they got closer, taller than Dorian but not as tall as he was going to be, the Iron Bull could tell. If he got a chance to get any taller. He had an impressive rack of horns for his size. He also had an impressive collection of bruises. He was naked, except for the chains. There was a lot of chain.

He wasn’t moving, and he didn’t look up or even twitch when Dorian walked past him. Dorian barely spared him a glance. Dorian was doing good, the Iron Bull told himself, he was doing a great job keeping up the haughty magister act.

It was an act. He knew it was.

He didn’t try to make eye contact with the kid either.

Maybe the kithrok was planning out the retaking of this city right now, maybe the Antaam would swoop in a few days from now and rescue the kid. He was so young, though. Maybe too young to be Antaam. Maybe Vashoth. Some of the Tal-Vashoth lived long enough to have kids, raise them, in the wilder more mountainous northwest. Maybe the Qun would help this kid, maybe not.

The Iron Bull couldn’t do anything about it.

He ducked his head going through the door of the schoolhouse, so his horns wouldn’t scrape the ceiling. It was dark and slightly cooler inside. “Please direct me to the governor’s office,” Dorian was saying to a Vint in military uniform.

The Vint’s eyes flicked to the Iron Bull and back. “He asked for another one, did he?” the woman sighed. “All right, straight down the hall and to your left.”

“Much appreciated,” Dorian said.

The governor’s office was surprisingly nice. The Bull admired the big colored maps of Seheron that covered the far wall, and the big metal globe on the desk. There was a collared elf polishing it.

The governor himself was a small pale man who looked right past Dorian at the Iron Bull. “Another subject,” he exclaimed. “Excellent.” To Dorian, “I don’t know you- newcomer, then? Heard about my need for specimens?”

Dorian tensed. The Bull coughed quietly, low, in the back of his throat. Their signal for _go along with it._ Dorian took a deep breath.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m actually here looking for information on a wayward cousin of mine who owes me money, but I heard you were offering payment and I thought we might make an exchange…?”

“Oh, certainly, certainly,” the governor- the Vint, the magister- said. He stood up from the desk, picked up the staff that leaned against it. “Now that I have two- and oh, what a fine strong specimen you’ve brought me!- I can go ahead and do the experiment. Come along with me. It’s fascinating to observe, I assure you, and we can discuss your remuneration on the way.”

“By all means,” Dorian said, managing to sound eager to anyone who didn’t know him, or so the Bull hoped.

The governor called for his apprentice, a sullen woman who wasn’t nearly so chatty, and they left the building, collecting the kid with the big horns outside. The apprentice yanked on his chains to get him walking, and the Bull saw that there were sigils painted on it in dried dark brown. _Fucking blood magic._ It was hard to keep walking demurely several paces behind Dorian, but he forced himself to do it. They were getting the kid out of there, he promised himself, no matter what else happened.

“Unfortunately the Veil is very thin in the city itself, especially after the recent fighting,” the governor was saying to Dorian. “I’ve been doing my summonings outside, just to be on the safe side.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Dorian enquired.

“Oh, Julia and I can summon more than enough servants to dispatch of any potential threats, dear boy.”

He hated Vints. He hated magic, and demons, and all of it. The Qun was right, he thought, Tevinter was a blight that needed to be washed away by the bright steel of the Antaam.

Then he remembered all the things the Qun would do to him, to those he called friends and family, and the moment of rage-fueled certainty passed. Thinking like that was what had fucked up this island so bad for everyone. But it was tempting, to give in to those thoughts. The anger would be so much better than the fear.

“Oh, yes,” Varas was saying, “I remember your cousin.” They were passing through the gate now, the tired tesserarius waving them through. “Concurrent with the young person’s arrival in Vyrantium I received a message from your family explaining that they were, er, entirely aware of the unfortunate costs that war exacts, and would welcome an honorable end for their wayward offspring.”

“Of course,” Dorian said, softly. They were past the gate, out into the open fields. A cool wind was blowing. “And I am sure a very generous compensation was included. A patriotic donation to the troops.”

“Oh, yes, very generous,” Varas said, with a wave of a hand. “I delegated the task to Julia, but she did not get the chance to complete it. The young person was captured by the barbarous natives during the assault. Tragic. It was doubtless an unpleasant death. We reported a heroic end in battle, as I was certain the family would not want any unnecessary drama.”

“Thank you,” Dorian said, and stabbed the bladed end of his staff through the man’s chest.

The Iron Bull knew Dorian was fast, but he had never seen him act that fast. He and the apprentice were both caught off guard, but the apprentice recovered faster, and the air went cold as demons coalesced around them. The Iron Bull counted three. Not bad odds, if the Bull had had his axe, which he didn’t. He felt the tingle of a barrier going up, and pulled out the knife he’d concealed in his belt, blocking a slash of claws from the nearest demon.

Fighting demons had always been the worst, back in the day, but this wasn’t so bad. He could feel Dorian’s barrier on him, close to the skin like a promise: you’re not alone. The first demon went down in a mess of ichor. The second exploded, showing him with blood that burned his skin.

The third demon was a rage one, and it nearly got him with a fireball he only missed by throwing himself out of the way and landing badly on his weak leg. Dorian finished it off with a flash of ice, his staff coming down to smash it into pieces. The apprentice was dead on the ground.

“Fuck,” the Bull croaked, “that was badass, kadan.”

Which was when he noticed the fog.

The Bull grabbed for Dorian’s hand, felt like crying when he caught it. “Time to run for it,” he said.

“Hey,” someone said, in Qunlat. The Iron Bull turned. Someone appeared out of the fog. The kid with the big horns. The chain that had been around his hands was in it, now, and the Iron Bull barely had time to react before it arced out and hit him square in the forehead, and everything went black.

 

He woke up and his head hurt like a herd of brontos had been tap-dancing on it. Wasn’t helped by the yelling. He couldn’t understand the words, at first, and then he could-

“-if he dies I promise you, you’ll learn what a real Magister can do, not whatever little lightshows you’ve seen from the dropouts here-”

“Uh,” the Bull said. The yelling stopped, which was nice.

A soft touch on his face. “Amatus?” There was a name that went with that voice, and a face, but he didn’t want to open his eye. He knew the light would hurt. He swallowed; his throat was dry and gritty.

“Shanedan, pashaara,” he managed, and immediately knew that that was wrong.

“Bull, do you understand me?” The voice was on the edge of hysteria. He needed to do something about that. “Do you know where you are?”

He opened his eye. By the light level it was late afternoon, and the fog had cleared. Looked like they were still in the field. A familiar face was peering at him, wide gray eyes in a small brown face.

“Do you… do you know who I am?” Tentative.

He did. "Dorian. Kadan."

There were tears in those pretty eyes, now. “Yes. I’m here. Oh, you fool, you should have stayed in Nevarra. No, don’t try to get up just yet. That young idiot hit you very hard in the head.”

“Kata eba- ugh-” He shook his head, as though that would put all his mental boxes back in their proper place again. “Why didn’t they kill us?”

“You two are pretty clearly outsiders,” someone else said. The kid, but speaking Tevene now, the Seheron dialect of it. The Bull looked at him again and reevaluated. Vashoth, yeah, but born to Tal-Vashoth who’d managed to get in with the Fog Warriors, raised their kid in one of those hidden villages. A true child of modern Seheron. “We thought you might have valuable information.” He was squatting in the tall grass, and he’d acquired a skirt, and a strip of fabric draped across his horns to shade his eyes. “Last time we took a weird magister prisoner, it worked out pretty well for us.”

He was looking at something behind the Bull. So The Bull groaned, and rolled himself upright, causing Dorian to exclaim in alarm and put small warm hands on his shoulders. He looked around from his new vantage height.

Behind him, Alam was smoking.

Could be worse, the Bull thought vaguely. Could be actively on fire. He’d seen that, flames leaping up from a city’s rooftops.

“The Fog Warriors,” Dorian said. “I understand they took the city very quickly.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck. “And what do they plan to do with us?”

“Get you proper healing, if they know what’s good for them,” Dorian said, danger in his voice.

“I can handle that.”

Dorian turned at the new voice. The Bull squinted, trying to get his eye to focus. Human, dressed like one of the fog warriors but that was a staff on her back for certain, and that accent was pure highbred Tevinter. His suspicions were confirmed when Dorian gasped, “Maker’s breath, _Antonia?_ ”

The girl’s eyes went round. “Magister Pavus? What… what are you doing here?”

“I was looking for you,” Dorian said. He seemed to be teetering between laughter and tears.

Antonia sat down on a nearby rock. “I admit I had a small hope the Lucerni might be able to do something for me,” she said, “but I never thought I’d see _you_ here.”

“He’s kind of an idiot like that,” the Bull said.

“So what does that make you, for following me?” Dorian shot back.

“I am sorry to put you in such danger,” Antonia said. “I am- perhaps not _fine_ , but- I have found a place here. These people need me.”

Dorian took her hands. “I need you,” he said. “If you addressed the Magisterium, and told them what the Bellusi did to you, and spoke on the realities of war here-”

“And could the Lucerni protect me, from my own family?” she demanded.

Dorian sighed. “I can’t promise that,” he said. “But surely it would be safer than here.”

“I’d say he’s right about that,” the Bull said. “And you’d be a damn sight more comfortable.”

“I don’t care about _comfort_ ,” the girl said. “I have friends here. I won’t abandon them. They respect me and I’m able to help them, really help them. I feel useful for the first time in my life.”

The Bull recognized the look in her eyes. She’d found a purpose, and those were addictive. He remembered the first few years in Seheron, how it was all bearable because he knew he was making a difference, because he believed in the Qun.

That hadn’t sustained him for long. How long would it sustain her? Longer than the moment she entered that smoking city and realized not all the corpses were evil fuckers like her parents?

Still, he said, “It’s her choice to make.”

“She’s a _child_ ,” Dorian said.  

“She’s the same age I was when I came here.”

Dorian didn’t say anything to that, but he made a small noise in the back of his throat, and the Iron Bull took his hand, and squeezed it.

“Well,” Dorian said. He wiped his eyes with his free hand. “I’m still sorry to have gotten you into this.”

“Don’t be,” Antonia said, and hugged him. The Bull let go of Dorian’s hand so he could hug her back.

“Do your best to stop the war from Minrathous,” she said, “and I’ll do my best here.”

“I will,” Dorian said, “I swear.”

The Iron Bull looked at his empty hands. Still strong enough to swing a greataxe. Maybe he should stay, too. Try to fix the unfixable. Maybe it’d be different, fighting a different side. Maybe things would be simple and clean.

He knew, very clearly, that he couldn’t. But he indulged in feeling guilty, nonetheless.

“Let me see that head of yours,” Antonia said.

 

“She’s not going to be here,” the Bull said, five hours later on the beach.

“Just wait,” Dorian said, faintly, on the edge of exhaustion.

“Smugglers have their ears to the ground. She’ll have heard about the fighting and she’ll have high tailed it back to Vyrantium, or to Rivain if she has any sense.”

“We’ve no other way home,” Dorian snapped, “so let’s just- just wait.”

The Bull went back to morosely staring out at the water. Wait. There was a dark shape, out there, cut out of the sparkling ocean.

“I can’t fucking believe it,” he said.

On the prow of the little ship, a small dark shape said, “I don’t break my promises, rocklickers. Get on if you want to live.”

They didn’t need to be told twice.

 

They got off the boat in Vyrantium with the dawn just sticking pink fingers up over the eastern edge of the ocean, and the Bull only barely had time to pull himself onto the edge of the dock before someone said, “Hey, Chief.”

The Bull stared. The dark shape on the dock resolved itself into Cremisius Aclassi, large as life and twice as smug, hair dyed blond, dressed like a Rivaini merchant and grinning at the Bull. The grin faded into sharp concern as Krem’s eyes catalogued the details of the Bull’s appearance. Krem had good eyesight in the dark. “You look like shit.”

“What the fuck are you doing here, you bastard,” the Bull growled, and tried to get both feet on the dock, and slipped, and something bad probably would have happened if Krem hadn’t lunged forward to catch him. That wasn’t a maneuver they’d practiced very often, and the Bull felt Krem nearly buckle under the strain before the Bull managed to get his footing again.

“Be careful!” Dorian hissed, springing onto the dock with obnoxious grace. Their smuggler made a very rude gesture at them and cast off again, presumably not wanting to take her chances being anywhere near them for any longer than necessary.

The Bull’s hands were on Krem’s shoulders, still, and Krem said, “I just couldn’t stay behind, Chief, and if you get on my case for it I’ll have to point out how much of an idiot you were to-”

The rest of his words disappeared in the Iron Bull’s hug.

 

 

They got much bigger, better rooms this time, on the outskirts of the city, Dorian clearly not caring how much gold flowed through his fingers, and Krem stood leaning against the door, casual pose not doing a thing to hide how everything else about him was saying guard. Looking at the Bull with that narrow sharp gaze. “So that island,” Krem said.

“Don’t, Krem,” the Iron Bull said. “I’m too tired.”

“Sure. Get some rest.” His mouth quirked. “Think I saw a really huge bathtub in there.”

“I’m not making some poor serving girl run up here with enough hot water to cover me,” the Bull said.

“Who needs serving girls?” Krem said. “You’ve got a mage. Make use of him.” He sighed. “And I know I just left myself open to a whole lot of bad jokes-”

“Yeah, alright,” the Bull growled, and went into the other room.

There was a bed. Dorian was sitting on it, hair wet, dressed in nothing but a towel. There was a very large tub, just as Krem had said, filled with swirling water.

“You washed,” the Bull said, like an idiot. How much time had passed, since they’d come up here? More than he’d thought. There was sand, under his feet. No firm place to stand. No Qun. Just the swirling ocean.

“I did,” Dorian said. “Your turn. You are unbelievably filthy.”

That was true, he was, and it made sense to wash. There shouldn’t be a problem, getting naked in this whitewashed room with only Dorian there, but it felt weird, somehow. He kept thinking about that kid, naked and chained to a railing.

The water was lukewarm, and then Dorian tsked and put a hand in it and it got nice and warm. “Oh yeah,” the Iron Bull said. “That’s good. Thanks.”

“Of course,” Dorian said, and then, “Bull, are you all right?”

“Huh?” the Bull said. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You’re sitting in hot water and shivering.”

He was. How about that.

“I’m not going to electrocute you while you’re in the bath,” Dorian said, “but I’ve heard I can be a good listener, when I put some effort into it.” He rolled off the bed, and crouched next to the tub. The towel was in his hand, and he dipped it in the warm water, and reached to wash the mud off of the Iron Bull’s shoulder. The Iron Bull flinched at the contact, and Dorian stilled.

“No,” the Bull managed to say, “keep going, I’m just- keep going.”

“If you say so,” Dorian said. Now that the Bull was prepared, the pressure was gentle and soothing. He sighed, closed his eye. The warm water was really good on his shit leg. He shifted so he could stretch it out a bit more. Little motions, but each time it felt like he might go sliding out of his body. Dorian’s touch on his neck, on his face was real. He focused on that.

“I shouldn’t have gone back there,” he said after a while. “Thought I could handle it. Should have known I couldn’t. Being back there felt like I’d never left. Feels like I never will leave, and I don’t have reeducators to pack it all up neat and tidy for me any more.”

“That might be a good thing,” Dorian said.

“I don’t know,” the Bull said. “You know how much I admire you, kadan? You’re out there fixing shit. Even if it’s pointless, and everything you build just falls into the sea, you’re still going to fight it until it kills you, and I couldn’t. I gave up.”

He was looking at the water, the way it swirled in eddies around his knees, but he was thinking about the fog, swirling, the water crashing on the beach, the sunny town square of Alam and what had happened to that sketch? He’d put them in his reports, most of them, so maybe they were still in some file in Qunandar, or maybe all the drawings had been burned, irrelevant.

Dorian’s hands were on his face. Small hands, so soft. All the ways he could have died on Seheron and never known a magister’s hands could be so tender. Never heard Krem’s laugh, or seen a dragon flash across an open sky, or helped save the world, a time or two.

“You didn’t give up,” Dorian said. “You kept going. It kills me that you’ll never know how grateful I am for that.”

He kissed him, and it felt real, and the realness spread, stilled his shaking hands and heaving chest and left him warm and alive.

He didn’t trust that warmth, that relaxation. The danger wasn’t over. It wasn’t over for Antonia and her rebel friends, holding a city the Qunari would soon try to retake. It wasn’t over for Dorian and his allies, each vote bringing new motivations for assassinations. It wasn’t over for the world, the war that was going to come no matter what any of them did.

But for now his fight was over, and he kissed Dorian, and thought about the sea.


End file.
